Talkin’ Trash With Ryan Leahan
[Unpublished]: Where did your love for music come from?
[Ryan Leahan]: I started making music about a month before I turned eighteen. I did it because I was sad, and I had no other way of expressing emotion. I was one of those angsty teenagers with a bunch of kinds of emotions, thinking their problems are the biggest things in the world. I made it, and it sucked at first, as most new things do when you start them. But, I just put a bunch of work in over time, making two or three songs a day all summer.
[Unpublished]: Your style of music is really interesting; it’s kind of hard to put it into a box. How would you describe it?
[Ryan Leahan]: It’s honestly whatever sounds good when I make it. When I make stuff, I don’t go into it with a certain sound in mind. I just find things that I like; it could be a genre I’ve never made before or even mixing two genres that shouldn’t even mix. It could start as a folk song and end up being a hyper-pop song. It could start as an 80s song and end up being a sad piano ballad or some shit. I just go with what I like, but I throw out a majority of what I make. You never know what you’re going to make or where it’s going to go, you just let it take you there.
[Unpublished]: You produce a majority of your own music, right?
[Ryan Leahan]: Yeah, I have a couple of friends that have produced a couple of songs, but I produce pretty much everything myself.
[Unpublished]: What’s your best advice for someone who wants to start producing their own music?
[Ryan Leahan]: If you enjoy making music, then you should at least give it a try. You’re going to be shit at first, that’s probably the best advice I could give you. You’re gonna suck. And then, it’s really hard because you’re going to put it out there for people to listen to. Your friends are going to boost you up, but there are a ton of people that are going to tear you down and you might not even know them. But, just keep working on it because, eventually, if you put enough time into it, you’ll be good. They’ll shut up.
[Unpublished]: What’s your main inspiration for your music? Other artists, things, emotions, anything.
[Ryan Leahan]: Recently I’ve been listening to a lot of Grimes, so I’ve been making a lot more stuff that sounds like her’s. I listen to a lot of hyper-pop now… a lot of distorted sounds. Back when I made “Platinum Green” I listened to a ton of Kanye and a lot of samples. So, that’s why there’s a bunch of old stuff in it. And, I really like The 1975. I think they’re really cool. Some of the ‘80’s inspired songs that they make are really cool, and I’ve been trying to make a lot more stuff like that lately.
[Unpublished]: What’s your wildest dream as an artist? If you could have one thing happen to you, what would it be?
[Ryan Leahan]: I don’t know if I want to headline Coachella. But, I think that performing as the sun was setting at Coachella and being big enough where you know that almost everyone is there to see you, but not everyone’s there to see you. I think that’s probably my dream… I thought you were going to ask me what the wildest dream I’ve ever had was. I’ve had some of the craziest dreams.
[Unpublished]: That’s actually a really cool question, would you mind answering?
[Ryan Leahan]: I dream every single night and they're extremely detailed and extremely vivid. Some of them are like movies and I'll wake up and be traumatized and crying my eyes out. Like, in a lot of them the world ends and a lot of people die. There is one where there's this disease that was getting spread-- not COVID. It was killing people really quickly. And, my dad was behind it all so I had to kill him and blow up the city. I listen to music while I sleep so the songs that are playing while I'm sleeping appear in the dreams. So, now there are certain songs that I have tied to certain dreams and you know it's never even a real thing but I can't really listen to them without thinking of it.
[Unpublished]: Have you ever tried lucid dreaming?
[Ryan Leahan]: Yeah, and once you do it you want to do it more and more. I think that everyone should write down their dreams because I go to bed and I live in a whole other world. I feel a majority of people just sleep and for 8-to-10 hours it’s just nothingness and they gain nothing from it. So, I really think that if you write down your dreams, even if they’re nothing, they’ll slowly get more developed the more you do it. It’s so cool because I know that when I’m going to go to bed at night I’ll wake up tomorrow with some crazy shit that happened.
[Unpublished]: What’s your favorite song you’ve ever made?
[Ryan Leahan]: My favorite song that I’ve made that’s actually our is “Paradigm.” I think it might be my favorite song ever but there’s an unreleased one that I really like. But, I can’t say it and it’s not done yet. So, we’ll see.
[Unpublished]: Speaking of unreleased music, do you know of any dates when you’ll be releasing new music?
[Ryan Leahan]: I can guarantee a lot of songs in 2020. There would have been a lot more in the early summer, but a lot of stuff happened that’s a lot bigger than just music. So, I spent a lot of time focusing on that. And, sometimes, especially in the past month or so, it just feels wrong to try to promote music when there’s so much more going on. But, definitely, I’m shooting for some stuff in August and September. Then, some more stuff that’s Halloween themed around that time. So, a lot is still coming in 2020.
[Unpublished]: Do you have any tours or shows planned for the summer?
[Ryan Leahan]: I still don’t have a manager, but I’ve been talking to a bunch of managers. I feel like I could do some shows in LA, Chicago and New York. But, I feel like I just need to release some more music and grow a little bit more before I’m able to tour around the US or England. I need a little bit more time until I’m able to go city to city with it, but if COVID goes away by 2021 I’ll be able to go to some major cities.
[Unpublished]: I’ve seen videos from your house shows in Philly and they look so cool. I live in South Jersey, so I’ve been wanting to go to one for a really long time.
[Ryan Leahan]: I wish I could have another one! They’re so much fun. I really miss house shows too. I haven’t performed in 2020 at all. The last time I performed was in 2019 and I miss it so much. Now, I have a whole plan. I’m going to make a grand entrance and the show isn’t going to be just music anymore. It’s going to be way more planned out and because of COVID, you realize how much fun it is to perform. And, when it’s taken away from you, you want to do it to the maximum level of enjoyment when you’re able to. So, I can’t wait for the next live show; I’m going to do some crazy shit.
[Unpublished]: Last summer, your song “My Little” went viral on Tiktok. How has that changed the course of your career?
[Ryan Leahan]: That’s really what sparked everything. The number of people that found that song and then listened to the rest of my music makes it really comfortable to know that it’s not just like, “Oh, you’re a one-hit-wonder.” I don’t really think that I got lucky; I think that if anyone puts in the amount of time that I put into music, eventually something is going to happen. If you push and push and push and work on making really good stuff, someone’s going to hear it and that has a lot of influence. It’s changed my fucking life for sure. I’ve quit both of my jobs, and now I can convince my parents that it’s going to be a career.
[Unpublished]: Where’d you work before?
[Ryan Leahan]: I was a money mover, so I would walk around with thousands of dollars in my backpack at sporting events and give bartenders change when they needed it. Also, I timed races like 5Ks and marathons. I worked as a camp counselor, cleaning houses, at a store in the historical district, and as a security guard at a concert venue. There’s definitely more, too.
[Unpublished]: What is the one thing that you want our readers to know?
[Ryan Leahan]: Don’t litter.
Surprisingly humble advice coming from a kid with a song that has almost four million streams on Spotify.
You can keep up with Ryan on Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter and stream his music on Spotify, Apple Music, and SoundCloud
